Bush Administration Blames Bill Clinton for Deficit

It’s not just me and you who don’t have enough money to go around. The Bush administration has pushed the government to the point of bankruptcy too. Starting Oct. 1, when the 2009 fiscal year begins, we are toast.

We have just got to get somebody smart in the Oval Office again. America can’t survive another mean-spirited, half-wit puppet president.

The White House on Monday predicted a record deficit of $490 billion for the 2009 budget year, a senior government official told CNN.

The deficit would amount to roughly 3.5 percent of the nation’s $14 trillion economy.

The official pointed to a faltering economy and the bipartisan $170 billion stimulus package that passed earlier this year for the record deficit.

As one economist said at the time of the stimulus proposal,

Let’s drop the euphemism of “stimulus package” and call this agreement by its proper name: “deficit spending.”

The Bush administration has been the borrow and spend ticket since it came to power. When, in the history of the world, has a government simultaneously cut taxes (for the rich) and funded war? There’s a reason the answer to that question is: never.

President Bush inherited a budget surplus of $128 billion when he took office in 2001 but has since posted a budget deficit every year.

The Bush administration has spent heavily on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and faces a large budget shortfall in tax revenue because of Bush’s tax cuts and a souring economy.

So who do they blame for the current state of affairs? Give yourself a gold star if you answered, “Bill Clinton.”

…the senior administration official says the budgetary problems stem from what is believed to be inadequate defense, intelligence and homeland security resources that were handed down from Clinton.

Oh please.

[Democratic North Dakota Sen. Kent] Conrad, who chairs the Senate’s budget committee, accused the president of “squandering” the surplus he inherited from President Bill Clinton and said the increased debt the government has taken on to cover the deficit has undermined the value of the dollar and hurt the overall economy.

“If they gave out Olympic medals for fiscal irresponsibility, President Bush would take the gold, silver and bronze,” Conrad said. “With his eight years in office, he will have had the five highest deficits ever recorded. And the highest of those deficits is now projected to come in 2009, as he leaves office.”

And speaking of Bush leaving office, I have a confession to make. I used to think, back when the Republican primary was ongoing, that it might not be so bad if John McCain were their nominee. I looked at the nut jobs he was running against, plus I accepted some of the “maverick,” decent guy crapola that I now see is completely false.

Even worse, watching McCain campaign the past month or so, I truly, truly believe he is as dumb as the Current Occupant. We have just got to get somebody smart in the Oval Office again. America can’t survive another mean-spirited, half-wit puppet president.

Quote du Jour

The environmental crisis is somber evidence of an insidious fraud hidden in the vaunted productivity and wealth of modern, technology-based society.

— Barry Commoner (1917- ), American biologist, college professor, and eco-socialist

Impeachment Hearing: Bush Dead-Enders Make One Last Stand

Rep. Steven King (R-Iowa)

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.)

Prospects are so bad for Republicans in the Senate that Sen. Mitch McConnell, their embattled leader, has given them free reign to vote against the party and, certainly, their unpopular president, if it will help them save their seats in November.
All in all, it was as sad and sickening a display by the Republicans as we have seen since they lost control of Congress.
In stark contrast, at the impeachment hearing last Friday — which was officially titled “Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitation” — Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee put on a show of the sort of blind loyalty to George Bush that has put the GOP in these dire circumstances to begin with.

In stark contrast, Republicans in the House are apparently determined to follow Bush in lockstep over the cliff (to mix multiple metaphors), or at least that’s the impression they gave at the impeachment hearing last Friday — which was officially titled “Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitation” — when GOP Judiciary Committee members put on a show of the sort of blind loyalty to George Bush that put their party in its dire predicament in the first place.

One by one, these pols — all of them the sort of Republicans who give white guys a bad name — took turns lashing out at the proceedings and trying to spin Bush’s crimes as insignificant and morally relative to other president’s misdeeds. At worst, it was a disgusting display of complicit politicians trying to save their own skins by fending off any pursuit of justice for Bush. At best, they came off a bit comically, like vampires in movies clawing and snarling at sunlight just seconds before they meet their doom.

Speaking of horror, a prime example of growling and back-biting — not mention outright lying on the record — was the performance of Rep. Steve King of Iowa (who is not related to the novelist Stephen King).

[…]

Button Links Obama and Larry “Wide Stance” Craig

Barack Obama’s campaign hasn’t done well with buttons this year.

First, it was a racist button sold at the Texas Republican convention.

Now, a design mix-up has produced a button with Idaho Democratic Senate candidate Larry LaRocco’s name and Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig’s face. Craig, you might recall, earned the nickname, “Wide Stance” after claiming that condition would explain his inability to keep his feet inside his own bathroom cubicle at the airport.

The buttons weren’t produced by the Obama or LaRocco campaigns, but by a third-party maker of Democratic memorabilia. We predict this one will be an instant collector’s item.

Of all the Idaho Larrys to confuse LaRocco with, why this one? Obviously the designer wasn’t thinking straight. *

Meanwhile, MoveOn will give you one Obama button (without Larry Craig) in exchange for your email address. If you want more, you have to buy them.

* Yeah, that’s a pun.

Pimping Out America’s Coastlines: McCain Gives the Speech, Oil Companies Give Him the Bucks

Straight talkin’ maverick John McCain has a knack for sniffing out money. First he married it, now he’s trying to sell out America’s coastlines for it.

And it’s working.

Campaign finance reform expert: “This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money.”

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month — three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban…

McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club…

“The timing was significant,” said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain’s oil industry contributions. “This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money.”

How do McCain’s handlers react to charges he’s a sleezy, spineless, Bush knock-off, money whore?

Brian Rogers, a McCain campaign spokesman, said he considers any suggestion that McCain weighed fundraising into his calculation on drilling policy “completely absurd.”

…”John McCain takes positions because he thinks it’s the right thing to do for America,” Rogers said…

Oil and gas executives have not traditionally been a major source of campaign money for McCain.

But they are now. Mission accomplished!